Advection, your honour

Really weird weather this morning as we set out, sunny a few hundred metres in from the coast, but the coastline itself was blanketed with a thick low-visibility fog. Was it cloud? Tiny droplets of salt water whipped up by the strong wind? Sand? Turns out that it was "advection fog" when warm air is blown over something cold (ie the North Sea). Locally (according to Wikipedia) it is known as sea roke or haar. 


Golfers in the mist (Dian Fossey's less popular sequel) 

Still, everyone is complaining about the current heatwave over most of Western Europe, so I won't complain 

Just for balance though I will complain about this: about half way between Beadnell and Seahouses someone has built an incredibly ugly house, seemingly modelled on a small warehouse in an out-of-town industrial park, right in the dunes. They have fenced off a large chunk of the dunes as their "garden" and now the path has been redirected away from the dunes up to the road and then back in to the dunes afterwards. The whole thing feels both tasteless and selfish. In truth the diversion is not that onerous, and I think the majority of my irritation comes from the hideousness of the architecture 


We passed by, round, and through yet another golf course. The golfers themselves seemed quite grumpy. It could be that they were annoyed by the weather (I suspect strong wind and thick fog do not make the game much easier) or it could be that they felt imposed upon by hikers such as ourselves. 

As we left Seahouses, during a momentary break in the fog, the magnificent Bamburgh Castle loomed in the distance, signalling our destination. Well, sort of. We're not actually staying in Bamburgh Castle, but we can see it from our room. 

Compared to yesterday, today was a breeze. Tomorrow, however, promises to be a doozy 









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